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Connect a Parrot Minidrone to a Linux System Using Bluetooth

Note

You must have root privileges on the Linux® system to perform tasks for establishing the Bluetooth® connection.

To connect the Parrot® minidrone to your Linux computer over Bluetooth, perform either of the following tasks:

  • Perform Hardware Setup Process – After you successfully complete the Hardware Setup process on your Linux computer, the Parrot minidrone is automatically connected over Bluetooth.

  • Connect to the Minidrone from MATLAB – This task can be performed to re-establish the Bluetooth connection to the Parrot minidrone, instead of performing the Hardware Setup process again, provided that the Hardware Setup process has been performed earlier, at least once, for the required minidrone.

Prerequisites

Before you begin:

  1. Turn on the Parrot minidrone. The On/Off button is located under the minidrone, near the vertical camera. Wait until both the LEDs turn green.

  2. Insert your Bluetooth 4.0 adapter into a USB port on your computer. To know if your adapter is Bluetooth Low Energy 4.0 compatible, see Finding the LMP Version of Bluetooth Adapter on Your Linux System.

  3. Turn on the Bluetooth support on your Linux computer.

  4. During the entire process, ensure that the Parrot minidrone remains switched on, and both the LEDs on the minidrone are green.

Perform Hardware Setup Process

Before you begin, complete the steps mentioned in the Prerequisites section. You also need a micro-USB Type-B cable to complete the Hardware Setup process.

To perform the Hardware Setup process of a Parrot minidrone on the Linux computer:

  1. On the MATLAB® Home tab, in the Environment section, click Add-Ons > Manage Add-Ons.

  2. When the Add-On Manager opens, click Setup and follow the onscreen instructions.

At the end of Hardware Setup process, the Bluetooth connection to the Parrot minidrone is automatically established.

Connect to the Minidrone from MATLAB

Before you begin, complete the steps mentioned in the Prerequisites section. Ensure that the Hardware Setup process has been performed earlier, at least once, for the required minidrone.

To establish the Bluetooth connection to a Parrot minidrone from MATLAB on the Linux computer:

  1. At the MATLAB prompt, type:

    parrot.util.ConnectDroneToBlueTooth

    The Linux computer searches for all Parrot minidrones nearby over Bluetooth.

  2. The Bluetooth connection is established based on the number of minidrones detected during the search:

    • If there is only one Parrot minidrone that is detected, the Bluetooth connection is automatically established to that minidrone.

    • If there are multiple minidrones detected during the search, the search results are displayed along with the name and MAC address of the minidrones. For example, the following figure shows the results with a Rolling Spider and a Mambo detected during the search.

      Search Results for Bluetooth

      Tip

      You can also switch-off the other minidrones and keep the required minidrone only in switched-on condition, so that parrot.util.ConnectDroneToBlueTooth command directly establishes connection to the required minidrone.

      If your minidrone is not available in the list of devices, see Minidrone Not Found in Bluetooth Scan Result.

      To connect to a specific Parrot minidrone, you need to enter the command again with proper arguments based on the search results:

      • To connect to a Parrot Mambo, enter the command along with the arguments 'Mambo' and its MAC address from the search results. For example:

        parrot.util.ConnectDroneToBlueTooth('Mambo', 'A0:14:3D:FD:F6:30')

      • To connect to a Parrot Rolling Spider, enter the command along with the arguments 'Rolling Spider' and its MAC address from the search results. For example:

        parrot.util.ConnectDroneToBlueTooth('Rolling Spider', 'A0:14:3D:4F:14:BF')

    After you enter the command, the MATLAB window displays the status of the Bluetooth connection being established to the minidrone. For example, the following figure shows the status of a successful connection to a Parrot Mambo.

    Bluetooth Connection Successful

If the above MATLAB command fails to establish a Bluetooth connection between the Parrot minidrone and the Linux computer, see Bluetooth Connection to the Minidrone Fails.

See Also